The present invention relates exclusively to the domain of mail handling and more particularly to a process for automatically creating and enriching a data base of a system for sorting mail items.
The sorting of mail in commercial or industrial enterprises or in public administrations is most often an essentially manual procedure. The employee in the mail department in charge of this task takes the mail items one by one, notes the mention of the person or department addressed to and, possibly after having opened this mail item, deposits it in the box corresponding to this person or department. It is clear that such an entirely manual procedure is long and its productivity is very low.
It has thus been sought to increase this productivity by proposing different types of devices allowing a certain automatization of the manual sorting procedure. For example U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,107 and French Patent Application FR 2 795 980 in the name of Applicants concern such devices.
However, one and the other of the solutions developed in these two documents employ a data base comprising a correspondence table which associates a unique box identification number with the different addressees of the mail items (physical persons, departments or other).
Now, for the sorting of these mail items to be efficient, taking into account the frequent reorganizations of departments or of persons existing in an enterprise, the data base must be updated and enriched regularly.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome this drawback by proposing a particularly simple process for updating the data base of a post sorting system. The invention also has for its object to ensure such updating automatically and possibly regularly.
These objects are attained by a process for automatically creating and enriching a data base in a system for sorting mail items linked, through an INTRANET communications network, to computer stations of addressees of these mail items and comprising reading means for recognizing postal data printed on these mail items, processing means in order, in relation with a work data base comprising identification data relative to the addressees of the mail items, to identify the individual addressee of a determined mail item, and sorting means for allocating this mail item to the addressee thus identified, characterized in that there is firstly automatically sent to the electronic mail address of each addressee, a determined electronic message requesting him to be connected on a WEB page of the sorting system in order to enter personal identification data, and, once entered, these data are then automatically stored in a temporary data base for comparison with the data present in the work data base in order thus to ensure automatic update thereof.
Thanks to this particular process employing two data bases, it is possible to update, regularly and automatically, the list of potential addressees of the mail items without specifically interrupting the sorting procedure.
In a preferred form of embodiment, the electronic connection message is relayed to each addressee user of said INTRANET communications network by a network administration computer station.
The electronic connection message advantageously comprises a URL address of said WEB page of the sorting system, so as to allow in one single validation an automatic visualization of a mask for entry of said personal identification data. The personal identification data entered are preferably chosen from the group comprising the name, the Christian name, the electronic address, the telephone, the department or the function of the addressee.
According to a privileged form of embodiment, the electronic connection message is addressed at a predetermined periodicity, for example each month.
The invention also relates to a post sorting system linked, through an INTRANET communications network, to computer stations of addressees of these mail items and carrying out the afore-mentioned process, this mail sorting system comprising reading means for recognizing postal data printed on these mail items, processing means in order, in relation with a work data base comprising identification data relative to the addressees of the mail items, to identify the individual addressee of a determined mail item, and sorting means for allocating this mail item to the addressee thus identified, characterized in that it further comprises a second data base for temporarily storing personal identification data previously entered at the level of a WEB page of the sorting system displayed on the computer stations of the addressees of the mail items in response to the automatic dispatch by the sorting system of a determined electronic connection message to these addressees.
The processing means further comprise means for comparing the personal identification data entered and stored in the temporary data base with corresponding identification data stored in the work data base, and means are provided to modify the contents of the work data base as a function of the results furnished by the comparison means.
The sorting system of the invention advantageously further comprises a network administration computer station for relaying said electronic connection message to each addressee user of said INTRANET communications network.